Thanks for the perspective, jiejie. I've had good luck in the past (in Europe and North America) picking up tickets during the Olympics at face value. But Beijing is obviously a different animal. I do think the ticket situation will be OK for foreigners, but I suppose there's no way to know for sure in advance. I think I have tickets for 7 major events already, so if I get nothing else (and I'm sure I could get into prelims in lesser sports), I'll still be happy.